How might advertisers try to influence us in the future?

Successful advertising is really about understanding the targeted audience. There is little to no ROI in advertising baby products in the AARP magazines or geriatric medications in Parents

The most recent innovative advertising scheme I’ve seen (and it’s several years old now) is W hotel chain’s use of Second Life to promote their product to a younger generation. They built a virtual hotel that could be used by members. I have no idea if it produced any ROI, but it was clever.

The best process I’ve ever witnessed though was conducted by one of the hotel chains in the company I used to work for. When the research dept. showed that 80% of our business came from 20% of our customers, they reached out to those frequent guests to find out what they really wanted. And then we delivered it. It’s not surprising that this one chain always ranks at or near the top in independent surveys. They are considered innovators and leaders, when it was a simple a listening to customer feedback and following through.

I think there will be an even bigger push to customize online advertising. I could see advertising companies giving incentives (such as coupons for free things, etc.) for those willing to fill out a survey to customize their add experience all over the web (this is already somewhat done on Hulu.)

Also, I could see advertisers trying to take advantage of mobile technology, for instance, flashing ads customized to your location for local stores and customized to your interests onto smartphones that could cost less because they are subsidized by advertising. They would also offer coupons and other advantages.

Advertisers could monitor activity on social networking sites and at appropriate times promote their products so subtly that they appear to be comments by a friend or acquaintance.

Churches that find the upkeep of old buildings difficult could come to an agreement with Pepsi or Coke for a special stained glass window advertising their product. Bibles could contain pages of advertising.

Companies could sponsor schools in order to target children. (This may already be happening.)

@flutherother I think we are struggling with answering the question here because there are very few people who have a futuristic thought process and gravitate towards marketing/advertising. In my book, futuristic means thinking outside of the box…something brand new. Ideation, again in my book, means to connect two completely different ideas and putting them together for a new concept.

Here is an example. A futuristic idea is the first person to look at the moon and think, “We need to go there.” Someone who has Ideation thinks, “Hmm, we travel under water in a submarine…why not create one to travel to the moon?”

@flutherother‘s church suggestions are forms of Ideation. Stained glass and pictures in books/magazines already exist. Yet using them for advertising in churches doesn’t, as far as I know.

Another example is bar codes. I was around when they were invented. They were on food labels long before all stores signed up for using them. Now they are used for advertising in magazines. I recently downloaded an app. on my iPad to read the little boxes printed on ads. That’s daggone innovative, but not futuristic.

When it comes to advertising, it’s just plain difficult, at least for me, to think up ideas without the technology having been created. Otherwise, it just comes down to listening to what the targeted audience really wants.

One thing I’ve noticed is a recognition of cynical attitude and admission of “our product might not be the best, but you know what it is.”

Marketers aren’t stupid and they don’t all believe that we are either.

I think that addressing the skeptical, head-on, is proving effective for some products.

In the future, we won’t even see information as advertising. It will be so well targeted to us, that we will feel like marketers are reading our minds and giving us just the information we need exactly when we need it.

Right.